Adobe program empowers youth worldwide to speak out.

THE ONGOING PROJECTS FOR Adobe's new global philanthropic program, Adobe Youth Voices, were presented at the second annual Celebration of Teaching and Learning conference in New York in March. Launched in June 2006 with founding nonprofit media partners Educational Video Center, Listen Up!, What Kids Can Do, Arts Engine, and iEarn, the initiative empowers underserved middle- and high-school youth to explore and comment on their world and take a more active role in their communities using video, audio, digital photography, animation and Web design.

Adobe has committed $10 million in funding over five years, with a network that currently includes 37 sites in the United States, England and India. Program leaders are already seeing results, says Miguel Salinas, AYV program manager. "We're at the stage now to assess all the great stuff that's happening," he adds.

At the West Side Collaborative Middle School in New York, for example, students recently completed a video documentary on the discrimination that exists against overweight people.

Also in New York, 14 students in grades 9-12 at the Bronx Leadership Academy II, a small public high school, have been meeting since September to explore bias in standardized testing from an inner-city perspective. Under the guidance of English teacher Shannon O'Grady and history teacher Kristin Ferrales, the students have delved into the ways the tests may create a bias against students from a particular language culture or region of the country. They will write about their work in a book to be published by AYV partner What Kids Can Do.

In San Francisco, also working with What Kids Can Do, students at AYV site Build San Francisco Institute are examining the concept of globalization through a digital photograph and writing project. A compilation of photographs and photographic essays will be incorporated into an AYV book on globalization.

Adobe Systems Incorporated launched the program in 2006 after a year of research into the philanthropic impact different forms of media could have on youth in underserved communities. "We asked ourselves, 'How could we translate that into an impactful learning experience?'" Salinas says.

AYV is structured through a network of sites that engage educators and youth both in schools and in out-of-school environments in a yearlong professional development and support program. Educators enhance their teaching strategies and collaborate with like-minded educators and youth media experts to enable youth to express themselves using digital tools to create media with a personally meaningful purpose.

"The sites, schools and organizations we've selected have a long history of success in engaging youth with the world around them," says Michelle Mann, senior manager of corporate affairs and community relations at Adobe.

Adobe and its founding AYV partners have a variety of free and low-cost resources available on their Web site to help you integrate youth media into your classroom programs.

www.adobe.com/go/youthvoices

FAST FACT

Two-thirds of young Americans believe their generation has an important voice but that no one is listening.

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts